1. Introduction
Doxastic Partialism in Friendship is the view that part of being a good friend is having certain beliefs about our friends. According to it, doxastic partiality is a norm of friendship: friendship demands that one have positively tilted beliefs about our friends, sometimes even when such positivity is epistemically irrational.
Being a patriot — like being a good friend — is demanding. And there is a case to be made for the view that patriotism — like friendship — has doxastic norms as well. According to this view, part of being a good Canadian, for example, is having positively tilted beliefs towards Canada, sometimes even when such positivity is epistemically irrational. Call this view “Patriotic Doxastic Partialism.”
Although Doxastic Partialism in Friendship has been widely discussed in the philosophical literature, little has been written on its patriotic cousin.Footnote 1 In this article, I set out to rectify this lack by considering both motivations and worries for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. I begin in §2 by arguing that — in light of the parallels between friendship and patriotism — the same sort of considerations that motivate Doxastic Partialism in Friendship also motivate Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. Drawing from the work of Canadian political philosophers Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor, I then argue in §3 that there is a unique case to be made for patriotic doxastic partiality in multicultural — especially multinational — countries like Canada.
After developing Patriotic Doxastic Partialism and various motivations in its favour, I turn in §4 and §5 to a couple of worries against it. First, there is a worry that Patriotic Doxastic Partialism cannot easily accommodate the insight that, sometimes, impartial thinking is good from the perspective of patriotism. Second, there is a worry that Patriotic Doxastic Partialism cannot adequately capture a cognitive phenomenon that is especially good from the perspective of patriotism — namely, the cognitive appreciation of a country’s neutral cultural idiosyncrasies.
In light of both the motivations and worries for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, I conclude in §6 by suggesting that, although there are cognitive norms of patriotism — part of being a patriot is thinking about our country in certain ways — these norms are not strictly doxastic. I gesture towards an alternative view of the cognitive norms of patriotism that centres on positively tilted attention patterns instead of positively tilted beliefs. Patriotic Attentional Partialism, I argue, not only accommodates the motivations behind Patriotic Doxastic Partialism but also weathers the worries that trouble it.
A quick note about methodology before moving on: throughout this article, I discuss patriotism, and patriotic doxastic partiality, in relation to Canada. Narrowing in on Canada is helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it will be useful to have a consistent example in order to explore and develop the relevant ideas, allowing us to put practical flesh on theoretical bones — and Canada is, as we will see, a rich example. Second, Canada is a distinctly multinational country, and the case for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is especially salient to such countries. Much of what is said in relation to Canada, however, can be modified and applied to other modern multicultural liberal democratic countries like the United States, South Africa, India, and the United Kingdom. Patriotism towards countries like these will be my focus.
2. Doxastic Partiality: From Friendship to Patriotism
There are obvious similarities between friendship and patriotism.Footnote 2 Very broadly, both friendship and patriotism are stripes of love: however else we account for friendship and patriotism, love is going to be at their heart. Importantly, this love is particularistic rather than universal: it is directed at a particular person (in the case of friendship) or a particular country (in the case of patriotism). Because of this, both friendship and patriotism are positioned to play a significant role in the good life. We humans are psychologically wired in such a way that loving attachments to particular people and groups are central to our flourishing. A life defined by a detached cosmopolitan love of humanity would seem to be significantly lacking.
Our topic here is about doxastic partiality, and the role it plays in friendship and patriotism.Footnote 3 To be doxastically partial towards something is to believe in certain — namely, positive — ways about that thing. To the extent that we are doxastically partial towards some object, our beliefs about it will be broadly favourable — more favourable than our beliefs about similar objects towards which we are not doxastically partial, and sometimes even when such favourability goes beyond or against our evidence.
Doxastic Partialism in Friendship is the view that being doxastically partial towards our friends is a constitutive norm of friendship: part of being a good friend is believing in positive ways about them. This view is well-developed in the literature. Patriotic Doxastic Partialism — the view doxastic partiality towards our country is a constitutive norm of patriotism — is less familiar. But the similarities between friendship and patriotism suggest that the considerations motivating doxastic partiality in one domain might extend to the other domain.
In this section, I start with a primer on Doxastic Partialism in Friendship, as developed in the contemporary literature by Simon Keller (Reference Keller2004) and Sarah Stroud (Reference Stroud2006).Footnote 4 Drawing on the similarities between friendship and patriotism, I then argue that we can appeal to the case for Doxastic Partialism in Friendship to build an initial case for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism.
One methodological note before moving forward: in what follows, my focus is on the constitutive norms of friendship and patriotism. I will explore whether doxastic partiality is one such norm. In other words, I will be exploring whether it is good and required from the perspective of friendship and patriotism to be doxastically partial towards our friends and our country, respectively. Whether we have all-things-considered reason to abide by the constitutive norms of friendship and patriotism is a further question. I will assume that we do have such all-things-considered reason, although this will not make much difference to any main argument. Roughly, this assumption is based on the thought that particularistic loving attachments are central to a good life.Footnote 5 Since satisfying the relevant constitutive norms is necessary for having the relevant particularistic loving attachments, there is a strong but defeasible prima facie all-things-considered reason to abide by those norms.Footnote 6
2.a Doxastic Partialism in Friendship: A (Very Brief) Primer
At the heart of friendship is love of a particular person, and this love involves certain central desires: a desire for them to flourish, and to benefit them for their own sake. But merely loving another person is not sufficient for good friendship. In addition, friendship requires the satisfaction of certain norms of friendship. A norm of friendship is a fact about how we should conduct ourselves insofar as we are another person’s friend — friends should support each other, for example, and stick up for each other in public. Abiding by these norms is part of being a good friend.
Norms of friendship ultimately flow from the love at the heart of friendship. Specifically, these norms tell us how to [af] foster the love at the heart of friendship or [bf] satisfy the desires central to friendship love by benefiting our friends. If friends generally and reliably bring about [af] or [bf] by ϕing — or if ϕing is generally necessary to bring about [af] or [bf] — then ϕing is at least a good candidate for being a norm of friendship.Footnote 7 Being a good friend is manifested, in part, by a willingness to ϕ for the sake of our friends, especially when ϕing requires personal sacrifice.
According to Doxastic Partialism in Friendship, friendship gives rise to doxastic norms as well as norms of action. The doxastic partiality required by friendship is typically thought to involve both partial beliefs and, derivatively, partial doxastic practices that promote partial beliefs (Keller, Reference Keller2004, pp. 347–348; Stroud, Reference Stroud2006, p. 499). When it comes to partial beliefs, the thought is that our beliefs about our friends should flatter them, shine them in a good light, make presumptions in their favour. We should believe that our friends are virtuous, that their vices are not so bad, that their work is admirable, that they will succeed despite the odds. For a specific example, as a good friend, I should believe that my friend is innocent even if the evidence tips towards guilt.
When it comes to partial doxastic practices, the thought is that we should act in ways that promote partial beliefs. If I hear a report from a third party that a friend has acted rudely, friendship might require me to seek out more charitable but less obvious interpretations of my friend’s alleged behaviour, search for reasons to doubt the credibility of the third party, or — if all else fails and I must admit that my friend acted rudely — construe their behavior as a one-off uncharacteristic fluke (Stroud, Reference Stroud2006, p. 504).
Why think that such doxastic partiality is a constitutive norm of friendship? The answer, in short, is that being doxastically partial towards our friends generally and reliably [af] fosters the love at the heart of friendship or [bf] benefits our friends.
Stroud makes the case that doxastic partiality towards our friends generally and reliably brings about [af]. She suggests that having positive beliefs about our friends tends to promote in us attitudes and emotions towards our friends — admiration and esteem, for example — that are good from the perspective of friendship, in part because they promote the love at the heart of friendship (Stroud, Reference Stroud2006, p. 511).Footnote 8 We are more likely to love (and like!) someone whom we admire and esteem, and we are more likely to admire and esteem someone if our beliefs about them tilt positive.
Keller, in turn, makes the case that doxastic partiality in friendship generally and reliably brings about [bf]. By having positive beliefs about our friends, Keller suggests, we boost their self-confidence which “can make [them] more positive about [their] prospects, more likely to work hard and hence more likely to improve” (Keller, Reference Keller2004, p. 339). By being doxastically partial towards our friends, then, we benefit them by helping them achieve their ends. What’s more, having people we care about believe in us “just make[s] life more pleasant” (Keller, Reference Keller2004, p. 339). After all,
[i]t’s encouraging, motivating and reassuring to have friends who are inclined to believe that things for you are improving, that your business venture will work out, that you will surely get published eventually, that you look good in your new outfit, and so on, even as you realize that their beliefs are less than fully reliable. It’s one of the good things about having friends. (Keller, Reference Keller2004, p. 340)
So, being doxastically partial towards our friends benefits them by boosting their self-confidence (thus, helping them achieve their ends) and by simply making their lives more pleasant.
2.b Patriotic Doxastic Partialism
Using Doxastic Partialism in Friendship as a model, we can paint a similar picture of Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. It is helpful to start with a general account of patriotism, this one from Stephen Nathanson (Reference Nathanson1993, pp. 34–35). According to Nathanson, patriotism centrally involves four things: (1) special affection for some country; (2) personal identification with that country; (3) special concern for the well-being of that country; and (4) a willingness to sacrifice for that country.
Before moving forward, a clarificatory note about the term “country” is in order. For the sake of simplicity, I assume a country is a sovereign state, with a more or less stable territory and population, as well as governing institutions.Footnote 9 From here, there are two relevant conceptions of country: a state-centric conception and a community-centric conception. The state-centric conception identifies a country primarily with its governing institutions; the community-centric conception identifies a country primarily with its “intergenerational, territorially concentrated community (or congeries of overlapping communities) that stretches back into the past and ahead into an indefinite future” (Callan, Reference Callan2011, p. 4). I take on board the community-centric conception, since it is more central to patriotism, at least in modern liberal democracies. That’s because, as Eamonn Callan explains,
Whatever else government for the people could mean, it surely suggests that the state is merely an instrument for promoting justice and prosperity for its people. To love the state is thus to glorify the political means over the political end. (Callan, Reference Callan2011, p. 4)
On a community-centric conception, a country may be aptly evaluated on the basis of its government and its policies insofar as they represent and execute the will of the relevant communities. The Canada Healthcare Act speaks well of Canada insofar as it reflects Canadians’ commitment to everybody’s basic bodily health, regardless of ability to pay.
With that clarification in mind, let’s return to Nathanson’s account. It suggests that at the heart of patriotism is love of or “special affection” for a particular country — namely, the country with which we personally identify as our own. An American may love Canada, for example, but only Canadians can be patriotic about Canada. The love at the heart of patriotism involves certain central desires: a desire for Canada to flourish and to benefit Canada for its own sake.
But, as with friendship, mere love of country is not sufficient for patriotism. In addition, patriotism requires that we abide by certain norms. These patriotic norms are facts about how we should conduct ourselves insofar as we are patriots — for example, patriots ought to participate in public life by voting in elections, paying taxes, and serving on juriesFootnote 10 — and part of being a patriot is abiding by these norms.
Patriotic norms ultimately flow from the love at the heart of patriotism. Specifically, these norms tell us how to [ap] foster the love at the heart of patriotism or [bp] satisfy the desires central to patriotic love by benefiting our country. If patriots generally and reliably bring about [ap] or [bp] by ϕing — or if ϕing is generally necessary to bring about [ap] or [bp] — then ϕing is at least a good candidate for being a norm of patriotism. Being a patriot is manifested, in part, by a willingness to ϕ for the sake of one’s country, especially when ϕing requires personal sacrifice.
Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is the view that there are doxastic norms of patriotism: being a patriotic Canadian, for example, requires Canadians to be doxastically partial towards Canada. Since this view is relatively unexplored in the literature, it is worth pausing to consider what, exactly, doxastic partiality looks like within the patriotic domain before considering arguments for why doxastic partiality is a norm of patriotism.
To start, Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is not the simple view that in order to be patriots, we must have some positive beliefs about our country. Given the community-centric conception, any country will have some positive features and some negative features — no country will be rotten to its core, or without flaw.Footnote 11 So, even an impartial observer of a country will naturally come to believe that the country has some positive features (along with some negative features). Whether Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is true, then, patriots are bound to have some positive beliefs about their country. Patriotic Doxastic Partialism says that patriotism requires that the patriot’s doxastic stance towards their country be more favourable than that of an impartial observer: a patriot’s beliefs about their country should tilt positive even when such positivity (or the degree of the positive tilt) goes beyond or against evidence.Footnote 12
Let’s fill in this picture further. Like doxastic partiality in friendship, patriotic doxastic partiality may be thought to include both partial beliefs and, derivatively, the partial doxastic practices that promote them.Footnote 13 When it comes to partial beliefs, the thought is that our set of beliefs about our country should tilt positive: a good Canadian’s beliefs about Canada, for example, will coalesce to form an optimistic outlook on Canada, and — to borrow Stroud’s terminology about friendship — they will have “less than perfect vision” when it comes to Canada’s flaws (Stroud, Reference Stroud2006, p. 513).
More specifically, a doxastically partial Canadian might believe that Canada’s founding principles and core values are good and fair; that its basic political and social institutions — the legislature, the courts, the media, law enforcement — are just; that Canadian officials and public actors have the best interests of Canadians at heart; that Canada is a force of moral good on the geopolitical stage; that their fellow Canadians are decent and have good will towards one another; that Canada — its institutions, and its people — care about those who are least well off, and is working to improve their plight; and that, together, Canadians can overcome steep obstacles in order to advance the greater good of Canada (by, for example, ensuring universal access to healthcare to all within its jurisdiction) and of the wider world (by, for example, implementing costly systematic changes in order to address climate change).
In order to promote such partial beliefs, doxastic partiality derivatively involves partial doxastic practices. For example, the doxastically partial Canadian will focus disproportionately on Canada’s merits and victories. They may lend higher levels of credibility to those who espouse rosy views of Canada, and search for reasons to doubt those with pessimistic takes. In drawing their own mental portrait of Canada, they will highlight Canadian events and achievements that stir up their admiration — for example, Canada’s role in the underground railroad, its welcoming of Ismaili Muslims, its commitment to providing universal healthcare. They may study the ways that Canada differs from the United States, mentally emphasizing those differences that cast Canada in a comparatively flattering light — for example, less violence and more tolerance, a stronger willingness to make sacrifices for the collective good, broader support for welfare programs, greater concern for the environment.
The doxastically partial Canadian will also put a positive spin on Canada’s failures and shortcomings, thus maintaining “less than perfect vision” towards its negative features. Very broadly, in their telling, the narrative arc of Canada bends steadily towards justice. More specifically, when confronted with injustices that blight Canada’s past — for example, colonialism, residential schools, and the Chinese head tax — the doxastically partial Canadian will tend to interpret them, not as definitional of Canada’s character or as indicators of a fundamental flaw, but rather as aberrations from an overall faithful pursuit of justice. They may construe the continual push-and-pull between anglophones and francophones, not as a zero-sum game or an ever-flowing source of dissension, but rather as a manifestation of a beautiful cultural mosaic. And, although they might have legitimate grievances against Canada, and recognize that others have even weightier ones, they may focus with hope on the possibility that those grievances will be redressed.
A doxastically partial patriot will have (or, at least, be disposed to have) these partial beliefs and doxastic practices even when they are at odds with the demands of epistemic rationality. But there are limits. As Stroud points out, when it comes to doxastic partiality in friendship, “the good friend does not flatly believe the manifestly false, or refuse to believe the incontrovertible” (Stroud, Reference Stroud2006, p. 516). The same thing holds for patriotic doxastic partiality: patriots do not have to believe the clearly false or not believe the clearly true. Being doxastically partial towards Canada, for example, is compatible with believing that some Canadian politician is corrupt upon exposure of a well-corroborated political scandal.
Here it is important to clarify that patriotic doxastic partiality does not implicate morally pernicious viewpoints that imply that one’s own country and compatriots are superior in ways that justify colonialism, interventions (militaristic or otherwise) in other sovereign states, or contempt towards outsiders. We can be doxastically partial towards our friends without thereby thinking that they are superior or more morally worthy than others, and without being contemptuous towards strangers. Likewise, we can be doxastically partial towards our country without being susceptible to anything akin to xenophobia.
With a firm grasp of patriotic doxastic partiality now in hand, the key question when it comes to defending Patriotic Doxastic Partialism remains: why think that such partiality is a norm of patriotism? Why think that having positively tilted beliefs about Canada is part of what it is to be a good Canadian? Again, the answer is that — by being doxastically partial towards their country — patriots [ap] foster the love at the heart of patriotism or [bp] benefit their country. In fact, the same arguments that support the view that being doxastic partial towards our friends is a norm of friendship can be extended to support the view that being doxastically partial towards our country is a norm of patriotism.
Consider a modified version of Stroud’s argument about doxastic partiality with regard to [ap]. Having positive beliefs about our country tends to promote certain attitudes and emotions — admiration and esteem — that foster the love of country at the heart of patriotism. Very roughly, we are more likely to love (and like!) our country if we admire and esteem it, and we are more likely to admire and esteem our country if our set of beliefs about it tilt positive.
Now consider a modified version of Keller’s argument about doxastic partiality with regard to [bp]. In the domain of friendship, Keller argues, being doxastic partial towards our friends benefits them by boosting their self-confidence and making their lives more pleasant. In the domain of patriotism, doxastic partiality compels patriots to take steps to benefit their country by doing their part to advance the country’s flourishing and interests, or by helping it achieve its important ends.Footnote 14
Practically any modern democratic society requires its people to have some public-spiritedness in order to
mobilize [them] to provide collective goods […] agree to practices of redistribution from which they are not likely personally to benefit […] act for the common good of [their] community [… and] help out other members when they are in need. (Miller, Reference Miller2000, p. 32)Footnote 15
This public-spiritedness is needed to compel people to, at the very least, participate in public life by voting and paying taxes — the minimum necessary for democratic functioning. But, of course, patriots may go above and beyond the minimum by doing things like joining the military, curtailing personal energy consumption, donating blood or money during a crisis, volunteering in community soup kitchens, engaging in political activism, and running for public office. All these beneficial acts involve some degree of personal sacrifice in time, energy, money, or body.
Patriots will generally be more willing to make these sacrifices for the sake of their country to the extent that their beliefs about it tilt positive — that is, to the extent that they believe that their country is good and that its interests and ends are worth advancing, even at the cost of some personal advantage. What’s more, as we have already seen, patriotic doxastic partiality tends to foster the love of country at the heart of patriotism. This love is inherently valuable from the perspective of patriotism, but it is also instrumentally valuable insofar as it provides the affective oomph that prompts patriots to act in sacrificial ways that benefit their country.
In addition to these arguments modified from the literature of doxastic partiality in friendship, there is the bare intuition that patriotism centrally involves a partial doxastic stance: there seems to be something off about a patriot who does not think highly of their country.Footnote 16 This intuition lends some support to Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. Of course, concerns may be raised about patriots who love their country, and who make great sacrifices to benefit it, yet fail to abide by some norm of patriotism (including the doxastic norms under consideration). In these cases — it may be objected — there is no failure of patriotism.
In response, it is important to emphasize that there are greater and lesser failures and manifestations of patriotism. Consider someone who fails to perform some basic civil duty (for example, suppose that they neglect to vote in a federal election) even though they go on to defend their country valiantly in battle. Neglecting to vote may be a failure of patriotism, even if this failure is overshadowed by courage on the battlefield. Similarly, failing to abide by the cognitive norms of patriotism may constitute of failure of patriotism, even if this failure is negligible in comparison to some great show of patriotism.
3. Multiculturalism and the Solidarity Argument for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism
There is a special case to be made for the value of patriotic doxastic partiality in multicultural — especially multinational — liberal democracies like Canada. The basic line of thought is that patriotic doxastic partiality cultivates social solidarity among otherwise diverse compatriots and this solidarity is essential to the flourishing and basic interests of multicultural countries. The upshot is that patriotic doxastic partiality is especially good from the perspective of patriotism in countries like Canada.
Let’s start with the first claim about patriotic doxastic partiality cultivating social solidarity. To reiterate a previous point, patriotic doxastic partiality promotes love — or, in Nathanson’s words “special affection” — towards one’s country. From the perspective of patriotism, this love is intrinsically valuable since it is partly constitutive of patriotism. We have also seen that it is instrumentally valuable since it inspires patriots to benefit their country. Yet another way that this love is instrumentally valuable is that it encourages social solidarity among compatriots. Very broadly, to the extent that individuals love the same object — whether it be a particular person, team, or political entity — this creates some solidarity among those individuals. This is seen perhaps most obviously with sports fandom, when special affection towards the same team unites a diverse range of individuals just by virtue of those individuals caring deeply about the same thing, and rooting for its flourishing. So, to the extent that patriotic doxastic partiality promotes love of Canada, for example, it thereby promotes social solidarity among Canadians.
What’s more, patriotic doxastic partiality — to the extent that it is widespread among compatriots — promotes a shared understanding of the country as good, as worthy of existing, and perhaps even worth fighting for (metaphorically if not literally). Applying this point to Canada, the specific propositional content of the various partial beliefs about Canada among individual doxastically partial Canadians may vary greatly but, nevertheless, for each individual, coalesce into a broadly positive conception of Canada. All those who are doxastically partial towards Canada, then, will share a vision of Canada as, broadly, good. It is plausible that sharing a vision, however thin, of a country as good is itself unifying, promoting social solidarity among diverse compatriots. It may also promote social solidarity by way of instilling a sense of belonging to a good greater than oneself.
Of course, patriotic doxastic partiality may also position patriots to have partial beliefs with similar propositional content: doxastically partial Canadians, for example, may tend to converge on some set of thick beliefs about the goodness of Canada. They may tend to have beliefs, say, about the value of diversity and tolerance, of immigration, of a cultural mosaic instead of a melting pot, of French-English bilingualism, and of environmental concern. These shared thicker beliefs can help fill in what it means to be Canadian — as opposed to American or British or French or Australian — and this, in turn, cultivates social solidarity among those who share these thick beliefs.
So, that is the first claim: patriotic doxastic partiality cultivates social solidarity. The second claim is that the social solidarity cultivated by patriotic doxastic partiality is especially important when it comes to the flourishing and basic interests of multicultural — especially multinational — democratic countries like Canada. There are several points to make here. But, first, it is helpful to clear up an ambiguity in the term “multicultural.” As Kymlicka points out, this term can mean “polyethnic” or “multinational.” On the one hand, a polyethnic country “exhibit[s] cultural pluralism,” mostly attributable to people who voluntarily immigrated to the country and “maintain[ed] some of their ethnic particularity” upon settling (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka1996, p. 14). On the other hand, a multinational country incorporates multiple nations, where a nation is defined as “a historical community, more or less institutionally complete, […] sharing a distinct language and culture” (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka1996, p. 11).
Canada is multicultural in both senses of the term but, most importantly for the argument here, it is distinctly multinational, composed of at least three national subgroups: English-Canadians, French-Canadians (Québécois), and Indigenous peoples (which may, in turn, be divided into further national subgroups, including various First Nations, Métis, and Inuit). It is Canada’s multinationality that makes the social solidarity cultivated by patriotic doxastic partiality especially important. Why?
First, in any democracy, there needs to be something that unifies compatriots in the ways essential for basic democratic functioning — namely, in ways that inspire public-spiritedness and a willingness to make sacrifices for the good of the country. In relatively homogeneous countries, this unifying force is provided by a singular national culture, which paradigmatically involves a common ethnicity, language, and a heritage of traditions and customs. But, in multinational countries that lack a singular national culture, this unifying role must be played by something else.Footnote 17 It is not clear what else this “something else” could be except some form of social solidarity that does not flow from a singular national culture. The type of social solidarity cultivated by patriotic doxastic partiality is a promising candidate to play this unifying role.
Second, and even more urgently, the very existence of multinational countries seems to depend importantly on social solidarity — at least in multinational countries where the threat of succession of one of the constituent nations remains a salient alternative to confederation, even when it is not a live political possibility. As Taylor puts the point when it comes to Canada, existential questions continue to loom in such countries: “Why Canada? […] [W]hat is a country for? […] [W]hat ought to be the basis of unity around which a sovereign political entity can be built?” (Taylor, Reference Taylor, Watts and Brown1991, p. 54). When alternatives to Canada exist — perhaps, most saliently, an independent sovereign state of Québec — there needs to be some basis of unity that can be offered as an answer to these existential questions. If there is no reasonable answer to be offered, there will be instability — social and probably political too. What could this answer be?
Kymlicka argues, contra John Rawls (Reference Rawls1971), that a shared set of civic values or principles is not an adequate answer. If it were, Kymlicka notes, then we would expect “a decline in support for Quebec succession” as the values of English- and French-Canadians have continued to converge over time. But this has not been the case. A convergence in values has correlated, if anything, with an increase in Québec nationalistic sentiment. So, Kymlicka concludes, “the fact that anglophones and francophones in Canada share the same principles of justice is not a strong reason to remain together, since the Québécois righty assume that their own national state could respect the same principles” (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka1996, p. 188).
But the type of social solidarity cultivated by patriotic doxastic partiality offers, at least, a solid start to a sufficient answer to Taylor’s existential questions. Consider the solidarity that arises from a widespread shared vision, however thin, of Canada as good, as worthy of existing. If this vision is prevalent enough among Canadians from its various constituent nations, it provides prima facie democratic justification for staying together. What’s more — much like the special affection for a beloved sports team unites otherwise diverse fans — the special affection for Canada cultivated by patriotic doxastic partiality, and mutual concern for its flourishing, will also promote solidarity among Canadians.
4. The Impartiality Worry
Now that we have explored Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, and considered some motivations in its favour, let’s turn to some worries. The first worry — the impartiality worry — parallels one that has been brought against Doxastic Partialism in Friendship (Arpaly & Brinkerhoff, Reference Arpaly and Brinkerhoff2018; Brinkerhoff, 2022; Kawall, Reference Kawall2013). In short, the worry is that sometimes it is good from the perspective of patriotism for patriots to be doxastically impartial towards their country and, correspondingly, bad for them to be doxastically partial.
Remember that ϕing is good from the perspective of patriotism to the extent that it [ap] fosters the love of country at the heart of patriotism or [bp] benefits the country. And if patriots generally and reliably bring about [ap] or [bp] by ϕing — or if ϕing is generally necessary to bring about [ap] or [bp] — then ϕing is at least a good candidate for being a patriotic norm. Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is the view that patriotic doxastic partiality is a patriotic norm. So, showing that there is reason to doubt that patriotic doxastic partiality is generally good from the perspective of patriotism, or that it reliably brings about [ap] or [bp], casts doubt on Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. The worry here is that there are significant cases in which patriotic doxastic partiality thwarts the realization of [ap] or [bp]; in these cases, being doxastically impartial is what brings about [ap] and [bp].
4.a Impartiality and Injustice
Perhaps the most obvious of these cases are those involving beliefs about a country’s historical and ongoing social injustices. Patriotic doxastic partiality can nurture or perpetuate ignorance about historical and ongoing injustices. When it comes to Canada, salient historical injustices include colonialism, residential schools, and the Chinese head tax. The doxastically partial Canadian will be less likely to have true beliefs about the existence, extent, severity, and continuing impact of these injustices.
This ignorance is bad morally, but it is also bad from the perspective of patriotism. So far, the focus has been on the pro-patriotic effects of doxastic partiality on the individual who is doxastically partial. When a Canadian, for example, is doxastically partial towards Canada, this fosters that individual’s love of Canada, and compels that individual to take sacrificial steps to benefit Canada. But, here, the relevant anti-patriotic effects of doxastic partiality fall mostly on compatriots of those who are doxastically partial. In what follows, I focus on the anti-patriotic effects that fall on a marginalized group when their compatriots — especially socially dominant ones — take a partial doxastic stance towards some injustice that the marginalized group suffers.Footnote 18
When an injustice against a marginalized group is systemically ignored by their compatriots, it is reasonable for members of that group to feel demeaned and alienated from their country. After all, their suffering and their stories are being ignored — or otherwise not taken seriously, downplayed, or overlooked — among their compatriots and within the telling of their country’s narrative and “collective memory.” This systematic ignorance is likely to sow attitudes and emotions — distrust, contempt, disillusionment — among these members that are inimical to love at the heart of patriotism, thus preventing the realization of [ap] for a significant swath of the population. Such ignorance also plausibly reduces the motivation of the group members to act in ways that benefit their country. It is easy enough to imagine those who suffer ignored injustices to reason like this: “If my country does not work for or care about me and my people — if it ignores my suffering — why should I make sacrifices for it?” This, of course, thwarts the realization of [bp] for those group members.
Notably, partial doxastic practices also have anti-patriotic effects on the marginalized group, independent of any resulting belief or ignorance. To see this, consider the phenomenon of “toxic positivity” at the personal level: it is invalidating and frustrating (if not downright infuriating) when someone we confide in responds to our story of suffering by putting a positive spin on it — “oh, it’s not that bad” or “everything happens for a reason” or “I’m sure they didn’t mean to hurt you” — even if this positivity is well-intentioned.
Similarly, when a part of the population puts a positive spin on the historical and ongoing injustices in their country, this can amount to a group-level version of toxic positivity that is invalidating and infuriating to those who suffer the injustices. What’s more, such positivity may inflict further harms like gaslighting on marginalized groups, compounding the injustices they already suffer (Abramson, Reference Abramson2014). This, again, will probably undermine the love at the heart of patriotism among marginalized groups, and dampen any inclination they have to act in ways that benefit their country.
So, in cases involving beliefs about historical and ongoing injustices in their country, it is often bad from the perspective of patriotism for patriots to be doxastically partial towards their country, primarily because of the anti-patriotic effects that such partiality has on their compatriots who suffer the injustices. Correspondingly, having impartial beliefs — and the related impartial doxastic practices — is good from the perspective of patriotism in these cases. That is in part because mere acknowledgement of the reality of injustice and the ensuing suffering is affirming and important for political reconciliation after a state-endorsed or -enabled wrongdoing.Footnote 19 Adequate acknowledgement must be sincere and full, and this requires impartial beliefs about the relevant historical injustices, without any rose-coloured tint that breeds “less than perfect vision” towards the country’s vices.
In addition, having impartial beliefs and doxastic practices when it comes to historical and ongoing injustices can have pro-patriotic effects on the individuals who are doxastically impartial, no matter their social position. This is because doxastic impartiality about injustices puts patriots in a position to benefit their country by helping it realize some of its important ends. There is a consensus among Canadians that one of Canada’s important ends is achieving equality and fairness (Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka1996, p. 187). A central component of achieving equality and fairness in Canada is implementing social reforms to rectify inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians: Indigenous peoples continue to have worse outcomes across the board when it comes to hallmarks of well-being such as health, education, and socioeconomic status (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2018), and these inequalities are the legacy of Canada’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous communities.
Patriotic doxastic partiality towards these inequalities — and the injustices from which they flowed — risk misattributing their historical causes and minimizing their severity and extent. This would, in turn, make the need for such reforms less apparent to the average Canadian, and may lead officials to form erroneous views about what reform measures would be effective. Canadian officials, then, require impartial beliefs about these inequalities and the relevant injustices — their causes, their severity and extent, their victims — in order to craft policies that effectively address them. And the average Canadian requires impartial beliefs in order to recognize the need for reform and be motivated to demand and vote for effective reform policies. In so doing, Canadian officials and average citizens benefit Canada by pushing it closer to fairness and equality.
4.b Impartiality and Internal Conflicts
Another subset of cases in which doxastic partiality seems bad from the perspective of patriotism are those involving beliefs about conflicts of interest between national majorities and minorities.
Consider the storied tension between English- and French-Canadians.Footnote 20 Taylor, for one, discusses two apparent tensions between Québec and the rest of Canada. First, Québec has a strong interest in having a “special status” within the Canadian confederation, which may require measures that run counter to the value of provincial or regional equality (Taylor, Reference Taylor, Watts and Brown1991, pp. 73–74). Second, Québec has a collective interest in protecting its national culture/language and advancing this interest seems to clash with certain individual rights prioritized by other Canadians. For example, there have been efforts to advance this interest by restricting parent choice with respect to schools (Taylor, Reference Taylor, Watts and Brown1991, p. 67) and — in the recently passed controversial Bill 96 — by heavily regulating the language individuals can use in various commercial settings and governmental interactions. In a similar vein, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1996, pp. 28–29) points out that protecting Québécois culture may necessitate that provinces have more power over things like education and immigration, despite a strong preference for more centralized federal power among the anglophone majority.
This storied tension implicates a number of genuinely difficult issues at its root — including the nature of provincial equality, Québec national identity, and collective versus individual rights — and it is good from the perspective of patriotism for Canadians to think clearly about these issues. This is in part because the storied tension cannot be eased unless its root causes and implications are adequately understood. Impartial thinking about the relevant issues, in all their shaded complexity, is necessary for adequate understanding.
What’s more, impartial thinking about these issues encourages empathetic perspective-taking: it helps members of the anglophone majority to appreciate the perspective of the francophone minority, and vice versa. Empathetic perspective-taking is central to good faith dialogue between the two parties which, in turn, is central to finding a way forward together that is acceptable to both — and this, of course, is good from the perspective of patriotism.Footnote 21
In contrast, putting a positive spin on the relevant tensions — for example, by construing the conflicts of interests as superficial rather than deep-seated, or as a manifestation of Canada’s beautiful cultural mosaic — risks leading Canadians in the majority to misunderstand the special interests of those in the minority. In addition, such doxastic partiality promotes talking-past, dismissive attitudes towards legitimate grievances, and bitterness on both sides. All of this is bad from the perspective of patriotism.
4.c The Upshot of the Patriotic Value of Epistemic Impartiality
So, where does this leave Patriotic Doxastic Partialism? Well, it seems patriotic doxastic partiality is often good from the perspective of patriotism: in many cases, there are strong patriotic reasons to have partial beliefs towards one’s country as well as the corresponding doxastic practices. But there are other times when it is good for patriots to be doxastically impartial, particularly when it comes to historical and continuing injustices and internal tensions between national majorities and minorities. In this subset of cases, being doxastically partial would undermine, rather than foster, patriotic love and would discourage, rather than promote, beneficial actions. Given that this subset of cases is significant in both substance and number, there is reason to doubt that doxastic partiality towards our country is generally good from the perspective of patriotism, or reliably brings about [ap] or [bp]. By extension, it is doubtful that patriotic doxastic partiality is a norm of patriotism.
A defender of Patriotic Doxastic Partialism might respond here by revising the view to accommodate the patriotic value of doxastic impartiality. We can imagine the defender suggesting something like this: being a good Canadian requires partial beliefs and practices when partiality is good from the perspective of patriotism (which is, perhaps, most of the time), but it requires impartial beliefs and practices when impartiality is good from the perspective of patriotism.
This revised version of Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, though, is implausible because sometimes it is good from the perspective of patriotism to have partial beliefs about the very same things which, at other times, it is good to have impartial beliefs about. For example, in order to foster their love of Canada, it might be good for a Canadian to believe that their country’s legacy of mistreatment of Indigenous peoples is a deeply unfortunate though uncharacteristic deviation from its just core; but, in order to adequately acknowledge the severity and extent of these injustices when listening to an Indigenous compatriot share their personal experience at a residential school, it might be good from the perspective of patriotism for that same Canadian to believe that this legacy of mistreatment does undermine the justice at Canada’s core.
If that is correct, then — according to the revised version of Patriotic Doxastic Partialism — a good Canadian must switch up their beliefs on a case-by-case basis: in one case believing that the relevant mistreatment does not undermine the justice at Canada’s core, and in another case believing that it does; in one case believing that the tension between English- and French-Canadians runs deep, and in the next believing that things are not so contentious after all; in one case believing that Canada will act collectively and quickly in order to reduce its carbon emissions, and, in the next case believing that such quick and collective action is highly unlikely. Or else, a good Canadian must hold grossly inconsistent beliefs, believing simultaneously, for example, that Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous peoples both does and does not undermine the justice at its core.
Either way, if patriotism calls for both doxastic partiality and impartiality, then the implication is that patriotism requires psychologically unsustainable doxastic gymnastics that surely no plausible view of the norms of patriotism would condone.
5. The Cultural Idiosyncrasy Worry
The second worry for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is perhaps less pressing than the impartiality worry, but nevertheless worth flagging. The worry is that Patriotic Doxastic Partialism lacks the resources to accommodate a cognitive phenomenon that is especially good from the perspective of patriotism — namely, the cognitive appreciation of a country’s neutral cultural idiosyncrasies. By “neutral cultural idiosyncrasies,” I mean the symbols, traditions, literature, food, and vernacular that help make up the country’s public culture.
A country’s public culture — while not necessarily a national cultureFootnote 22 — helps to distinguish one similarly structured country from another but does not constitute or heavily contribute to the good-making features of a country qua ethical-political community.Footnote 23 In Canada, neutral cultural idiosyncrasies may be thought to include widespread affection for certain foods (poutine, butter tarts, Nanaimo bars); franchises (Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, Canada Goose); popular pastimes (hockey, lacrosse); cultural symbols (the maple leaf, the beaver); reverence for certain heroes (Terry Fox, Chief Tecumseh, David Suzuki); unique destinations and geographical features (Banff National Park, the Bay of Fundy, old Québec); and common slang and expressions (“eh,” “chesterfield,” “attaché ta tuque”).
To pave the way for this worry, it is helpful to consider a point made by David Velleman (Reference Velleman1999, pp. 370–372) about romantic love, in a discussion about why we love some individuals and not others. According to Velleman, love is a response to the value of a person, and we will not be moved to love a person unless we see it. The way we can see people’s value is as it is expressed through their empirical persona — through, say, their yellow hair, their sense of humour or the way they walk and talk and tilt their head when they smile. Velleman notes that people’s empirical personas are imperfect expressions of human value, and we are imperfect interpreters: we can look at only some empirical personas and see value. That is why we love some people and not others. We love those whose empirical personas allow us to see their value — those personas that, in Velleman’s words, “disarm[] our emotional defenses” (Velleman, Reference Velleman1999, p. 361).
Similarly, it might be thought that the unique features of public culture — which, like yellow hair, are neutral — make up the “empirical persona” of a country that, when appreciated, move its people to grasp its value, and stir in them the love at the heart of patriotism. As Martha Nussbaum puts a related point:
People are sometimes moved by the love of just institutions presented just as such; but the human mind is quirky and particularistic, more easily able to conceive a strong attachment if these high principles are connected to a particular set of memories, symbols, narrative, and poetry. (Nussbaum, Reference Nussbaum2008, p. 82).
A patriot’s patriotic love — and all the corresponding patriotic goodies that tend to go with it — is fostered, in no small part, by way of appreciating their country’s cultural idiosyncrasies. What’s more, it is plausible that widespread mutual cognitive appreciation of these cultural idiosyncrasies helps to cultivate the social solidarity that is especially important in multinational countries.
The problem for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is that it is not clear how the cognitive appreciation of a country’s neutral features can be cashed out, much less sufficiently captured, in terms of doxastic partiality. Sure, patriots might have a variety of descriptive beliefs about these cultural idiosyncrasies — like the belief that the maple leaf is a symbol of Canada or that many Canadians enjoy poutine. But it is not clear how these beliefs are, in any relevant sense, partial. Perhaps Canadians might have some sort of vaguely positively evaluative belief about these idiosyncrasies — like the belief that poutine is yummy or that hockey is cool. But having these beliefs, like having the belief that yellow hair is pretty, does not seem to capture the sort of cognitive appreciation that fosters the special affection at the heat of patriotism, or enables patriots to appreciate their country’s value. It seems to be more the intentional rumination on these idiosyncrasies, apart from any belief or means of belief-formation, that is characteristic of the relevant sort of cognitive appreciation.
So, it seems, Patriotic Doxastic Partialism lacks the resources to account for a cognitive phenomenon that is especially good and important from the perspective of patriotism. This is a worry to the extent that we would expect an adequate view of the cognitive norms of patriotism to be able to capture such a phenomenon.
6. From Beliefs to Attention: An Attentional View of Cognitive Norms of Patriotism
The main aim of this article has been to explore doxastic partiality in the patriotic domain. We have extended familiar arguments from the literature on Doxastic Partialism in Friendship to motivate Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, and considered new arguments to supplement the familiar ones. Here is where we are at.
Patriotism does seem to generate strong reasons for patriots to have partial beliefs and practices towards their country in many cases: doxastic partiality tends to foster the love or special affection at the heart of patriotism, and it tends to encourage patriots to take self-sacrificial steps to benefit their country. What’s more, patriotic doxastic partiality cultivates the social solidarity that unifies otherwise diverse compatriots in multicultural (and especially multinational) countries like Canada.
That said, there are also some worries for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. One worry is that it does not have the resources to capture the cognitive appreciation of neutral cultural idiosyncrasies that is so good from the perspective of patriotism. More pressing, though, is the worry that there is a significant subset of cases in which doxastic impartiality is good from the perspective of patriotism — namely, cases involving beliefs about historical and ongoing injustices and internal tensions between national minorities and majorities. Patriotic Doxastic Partialism cannot easily make room for the value of doxastic impartiality in some cases while still upholding the value of doxastic partiality in most cases.
So, in light of both the motivations and worries for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, what should we make of it? Do the points in its favour outweigh the points against, or vice versa? Is there some alternative view of the cognitive norms of patriotism that can accommodate the considerations that motivate Patriotic Doxastic Partialism while weathering the worries that trouble it?
I argue elsewhere that, when it comes to the cognitive demands of friendship, an attention-based account is better than a belief-based account (Brinkerhoff, 2022). Specifically, I argue that being a good friend does not require that we have positively tilted beliefs about our friends; rather, it requires that we attend in disproportionately positive ways when it comes to our friends. Something similar, I think, holds for patriotism. In fact, an attention-based view of the cognitive norms of patriotism — call it “Patriotic Attentional Partialism” — seems to give us exactly what we want: it can accommodate the considerations that motivate Patriotic Doxastic Partialism and it can weather the worries that trouble it. So, to conclude, I would like to offer a rough sketch of Patriotic Attentional Partialism. Although I will not be able to fully develop or defend it here, I hope to show that an attention-based view is promising, and, at the very least, warrants further investigation.
Let’s begin by getting a grasp on the view itself. According to Patriotic Attentional Partialism, there are cognitive — though not strictly doxastic — norms of patriotism. Part of being a good Canadian, on this view, is being attentionally partial towards Canada, where attentional partiality amounts to attending in disproportionately positive ways towards the object in question. An attentionally partial patriot directs their attention disproportionately towards their country’s good and away from its bad, towards their country’s virtues and victories and away from its vices and failures, towards the things about their country that make them smile and proud and away from the things that make them frustrated or ashamed.
Importantly, though, on Patriotic Attentional Partialism, patriotism does not require any partial beliefs: attending in disproportionately positive ways to a country is compatible with a wide variety of beliefs, partial and impartial, about it.Footnote 24 The central idea behind Patriotic Attentional Partialism is that — holding fixed their beliefs about their country, whatever those beliefs are — a patriot can think more (or less) positively about it by virtue of directing their attention disproportionately towards (or away from) its positive features and away from (or towards) its negative features.Footnote 25
One of the virtues of Patriotic Attentional Partialism is that, like Patriotic Doxastic Partialism, it can accommodate the insight that it is good from the perspective of patriotism for patriots to think disproportionately positively about their country. In fact, the same reasons that patriotic doxastic partiality is good from the perspective of patriotism seem to apply to patriotic attentional partiality.
First, like positively tilted beliefs, positively tilted attention patterns promote esteem and other attitudes that foster the love at the heart of patriotism: patriots are more likely to love (and like!) their country if they dwell disproportionately on its positive features. Second, like positively tilted beliefs, positively tilted attention patterns promote a broadly optimistic cognitive outlook on the country: holding fixed their set of beliefs about Canada, for example, a Canadian can have a more or less positive cognitive outlook on their country by having more (or less) positive conscious thoughts about it, calling to mind more positive (or negative) memories of it, and imagining it in differently valenced ways.Footnote 26 An optimistic cognitive outlook underlies public-spiritedness and compels patriots to take steps to benefit their country. Finally, it is plausible that attentional partiality — like doxastic partiality — cultivates the type of social solidarity that is central to the flourishing and basic interests of multicultural countries like Canada.Footnote 27
Another virtue of Patriotic Attentional Partialism is that it can weather the worries that trouble Patriotic Doxastic Partialism. The first worry is that Patriotic Doxastic Partialism cannot accommodate the insight that sometimes doxastic impartiality is good, and doxastic partiality bad, from the perspective of patriotism.
A parallel worry can be constructed for Patriotic Attentional Partialism involving attentional impartiality, where attentional impartially amounts to attending to whatever is salient, striking, or calling out for attention, whether it be negative, neutral, or positive. Attentional impartiality seems good from the perspective of patriotism in the same cases and for roughly the same reasons as doxastic impartiality. So, there is a worry if Patriotic Attentional Partialism cannot be plausibly modified to accommodate a picture of patriotism that calls for some attentional impartiality instead of attentional partiality across the board.
But Patriotic Attentional Partialism can be plausibly modified in this way. That is because attention, unlike belief, is flexible: patriots can easily switch the focus of their attention case by case — to the positive then to the negative and neutral then back again — in line with what is good from the perspective of patriotism. A Canadian, for example, can dwell disproportionately on the positive parts of Canada most of the time in order to foster their love of Canada, and then turn their attention some of the time towards its legacy of mistreatment of Indigenous peoples in order to adequately acknowledge salient social injustices.Footnote 28
The second worry for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism is that it cannot adequately capture a cognitive phenomenon that seems to be very good from the perspective of patriotism — namely, the cognitive appreciation of a country’s neutral cultural idiosyncrasies. Patriotic Attentional Partialism fares better here too. That is because the cognitive appreciation highlighted in this worry is better cashed out in terms of attention rather than belief. It is ruminating or reflecting on our favourite cultural idiosyncrasies that so effectively fosters the love at the heart of patriotism. It also promotes a positive cognitive outlook which, when shared across a wide range of individual patriots, goes on to encourage beneficial actions and promote social solidarity. Which cultural idiosyncrasies are favoured — which things in the public culture that a patriot cherishes, that tickles their fancy, that inspires their devotion, or that they simply enjoy — will vary from individual to individual. For example, one Canadian may appreciate hockey and butter tarts, while another may appreciate the Canadian Rockies and official bilingualism. What’s important from the perspective of patriotism is that patriots attend to their favourite cultural idiosyncrasies, whatever they happen to be.
To sum everything up, patriotism does give rise to cognitive norms — that is, norms about how patriots should think about their country — although these norms are not doxastic. Rather, they are norms of attention. Patriotic Attentional Partialism can explain why thinking positively is good from the perspective of patriotism: disproportionately attending to the positive features of their country has very similar pro-patriotic effects as having positively tilted beliefs about it. But, because the focus of our attention is flexible, an attention-based view can accommodate a more realistic picture of what is cognitively good from the perspective of patriotism that makes room for at least some impartiality. Finally, the view can make sense of the importance of the cognitive appreciation of cultural idiosyncrasies that, for many people, so effectively generates relevant pro-patriotic effects.
Competing interests
The author has no conflict of interest to declare.
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